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Crashes
PLEASE NOTE: The following is no longer an issue. This page is only being kept here for archiving purposes. Kaiserreich 0.6.3 - Crashes Some Background If you've been playing Kaiserreich since we released 0.6, you've likely noticed that it's a bit more apt to crash than normal (and if you haven't, then you're fortunate). A few of these issues have been our fault, but most of them have been due to some changes made by Paradox regarding the way things work behind the scenes - puppeting a country that's already at war, for instance, can cause a crash, whereas it used to simply end their wars. No doubt this is due to the changes in how war wars work in HoI4 1.5, but it came as something of a surprise to us... in fact, we had to institute mod-wide logging to even discover this was the case. If you open up the “game” log in HoI4’s log folder, you’ll notice it now tracks every time the mod fires an effect of any kind: every event, decision, national focus, idea, technology... all of it leaves a note in the log (and, no, this doesn’t cause any game lag, surprisingly). It’s something that helps us, as any crash caused by an effect we’ve implemented will be near the end of the log (it’s not normally the last entry, mind you, as there’s generally a bit of a delay), and thus we’ve been able to track down a whole bunch of problems. The “1937 Crash” There is, however, one ongoing issue which the logging hasn’t helped us find. Since 0.6 went out, there’s been an ongoing reported issue of a “mystery crash” that usually starts in mid-1937 but seems like it can happen later, as well. The crash is irregular, meaning you can reload the save and sometimes proceed past it, which led us to believe that it was related to a mod event – something the AI decides to do or not do. After implementing the logging and receiving a host of crash saves from people to investigate, however, we’ve realised a couple of frustrating things about this crash: 1) It’s not caused by any effect we can log – or, at least, if it is, the crash isn’t instantaneous. We’ve never encountered a crash that isn’t an instant one, however. Before you ask, yes, crashes caused by effects in the ‘immediate’ clause of an event are still logged, we’ve checked. 2) More importantly: most of the saves sent to us we cannot reproduce the crash. This includes ones where someone says “cannot get past x date” or “crashes every time”. We load up the save, using whatever format they reported having, and nothing. We don’t load up additional mods, but many of these people weren’t using any, and still nothing. We’re even checking using the public release on Steam, so we should have exactly the same files… and nothing. I’ve personally managed a crash once or twice from these saves over dozens I’ve checked, but then can never get it to repeat, so it’s difficult to tell if that’s even related. What does this tell us? The crash could be related to a bad trigger (meaning an event would cause a crash before it was implemented, and thus before anything about it could be logged), or something we don’t log like a map error that crashes only when the AI attempts to interact with it… but why, then, is the crash not reproduceable? A map or trigger error should crash for us just as often as it crashes for the user. So this is something on the user’s end – some difference in their computer set-up, or some variation in their files, which we have yet to figure out. That makes it frustrating as hell for all of us, I’m sure. We have had mixed luck reducing the frequency of the crashing by enabling admin mode on window or by running the game of speed 4 and below, but neither have been a magic bullet, leaving the crash still at large. What can you do? First off, make sure you have a fresh install of the mod. If you’re using Steam, unsubscribe from both Kaiserreich and the music mod and make sure all existing files wiped clear (you go to the launch screen and the mod isn’t available as an option) before re-subscribing and downloading. If you’re using a direct download version, delete all previous files before reinstalling – don’t just copy over what’s there (this is always a good practice, in fact). If you do get the crash, note that – normally – you can reload and chances are good you can proceed past the point of the crash with a few tries. If you can’t, there’s a bug reports page on GitHub (at https://github.com/KR4/kaiserreich/issues) where you could report it and send the save to us – though please, please make sure you provide all the info we ask. Since we’ve received so many saves where we simply cannot reproduce the crash, the more info you provide, the better. And please be honest: if you’re using other mods, don’t just disable the mods and re-save… that doesn’t “get rid” of the effect the mods had on your game or in the save file, and if you’ve changed anything else in your files please tell us. The more information we have, the better. And if you’re an experienced user, or someone with some knowledge of how the game works or what could possibly be causing the crash? Please tell us. Consider this a public appeal for help regarding a frustrating issue that we’d all like to solve. Maybe this is an issue that Paradox has to solve for us with the next patch – but we’ll be waiting for that for a while, so if it’s something we can work around now, we should. Category:Organization